Monday, November 05, 2007

Music: Three sheets of Gregorian Chant

[Update: thanks to the helpful comments below (and at NLM), I'll be expanding this blog post to include the explanations for the "incomplete" parts of the sheets (such as versicles that seem to stop mid-word).]

Below you'll find images of three double-sided sheets of vellum with Gregorian Chant. I bought them at the Golden Nugget antique market (just outside Lambertville, NJ) this past Sunday, for a mere $150. They measure about 20" by 11" and are in varying states of disrepair.

Sheet 2A-BThis sheet has larger margins than sheets one and three, so I suspect it is from a completely different manuscript. I can tell the front from the back because of a few clues. The first image (the front) has an F-clef and is clearly continuing from some other page, whereas the second image (the back) has a C-clef at the bottom and is finished with its last word. In addition, the first image (the front) has a C-clef at the bottom, and the custos -- the fragment of a neume (or note) at the end of a staff -- is a "C", which matches with the leading "C" neume of the second image (the back). This page appears to be part of a requiem.

The back begins with Psalm 117[116]:15 (Vox exultationis) followed by a reference to Revelation 11:4 (Isti sunt due olive). The last word on the page is Habent (with the n omitted) which is the continuation of the antiphon (habent potestatem claudere...).Vox exultationis etsalutis in tabernaculis iu-storum. P. Et eter. R.Isti suntdue olive et duo candela-bra lucencia antedominum alleluya. Habent...

Our schola just got fired from our parish - we're no longer welcome doing Gregorian chant in the mass - it confuses the people and is just "entertainment" in the words of our new music director. The choir will go back to singing more appropriate mass songs like "Shine Jesus Shine" "You Raise Me Up" and "Wind Beneath My Wings".

darcy - yeah, the first and third sheets (the consecutive ones) are certainly Advent-oriented, given the numerous references to Isaiah and the Luke passage. The weird thing is that it's a smattering of Scripture, a mix-and-match if you will.

GFF - I'm terribly sorry about your parish's poor decision. It's unfair to you and the rest of the schola, as well as the rest of the faithful. Instead of sound liturgically oriented music, now they'll banality.

I think 3 A-B are the responsories at Matins sung after each lesson, found the Advent Office of many breviaries. The red if you look says “In Secdo Noctno” – In the Second Nocturn. The order doesn’t appear to be the same as in the Roman breviary so I'm speculating that it must be from another one. The last part of the Responsory appearing on the first sheet is

I'm doing some research in digital image processing of ancient musical manuscripts, and looking for plainchant images I got yours in my search results. Actually, the first experiments I performed on this topic were using your picture of sheet 3A, before using the Digital Scriptorium database.

And here I want to ask you a favor...I need at least one public domain image to publish as an example on a technical meeting paper, and I just want to ask if it's possible to use one of yours.Is just for academic purposes, and no profit will be made from it.